


Psalm 40:6

by littlearrows



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s07e17 The Born-Again Identity, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 02:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2411225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlearrows/pseuds/littlearrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It goes like this: Sam is dying, and Dean can't stop it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Psalm 40:6

It goes like this:

Sam gets his soul back. Dean’s baby brother gets his soul back. But

The wall comes tumbling down. The wall comes tumbling down.

Lucifer is there, a constant ghost in Sam’s eye. Sam flinches in the sunshine and holds his hands over his ears in the moonlight. Dean is watching his baby brother fall apart; is watching the circles under Sam’s eyes grow deeper and darker; is seeing Sammy throw his food on the ground and is hearing Sammy murmur about maggots in the ground beef.  Dean is watching his baby brother.

Sam goes out one night, runs and runs and runs and tries to outrun the devil. He can’t do it. He gets hit by a car, and lands in the hospital, and Dean races to him.

The doctor tells him that his baby brother has gone crazy. “Experiencing a full-blown psychotic episode” and “insomnia” and “do you understand?”

No, Dean doesn’t understand. Why did it have to be Sammy? Why couldn’t it have been him? Why why why?

Dean visits Sam in the hospital—in the ward labeled “High Security Area.” Sam is watching the desk, wincing at whatever Lucifer is saying to him. Dean clears his throat to get Sam’s attention. “How are you feeling?” Dean asks because he doesn’t know what else to say. They’ve pretended to be crazy a thousand times, two thousand times, but now they’re here and Dean doesn’t know what to say. He feels like an idiot.

Sam ignores his stupid question. “Do you want to get out here?” He asks. “Let’s go to the Grand Canyon. Or Mount Rushmore. I’ve never been to the French Quarter. Let’s go to Café du Monde. Jess—it was her favourite place; she went when she was a kid. Let’s go, Dean, let’s go.”

Dean’s “no” is on the tip of his tongue, about to leave his mouth when Sam flinches again and winces. His eyes screw shut.

Dean says yes.

* * *

It goes like this:

They drive for thirteen hours straight to get to New Orleans. Dean drives the whole way. He points out landmarks to Sam to keep him from listening to Lucifer, and they play the license plate game.

(Like they did when they were little. When Sam was learning how to read and how to write and where things were in the world. When, as far as their father was concerned, all they needed to know how to read was maps and road signs and the only place they needed to know was where their next motel was. When Dean would sit in the backseat with Sam and unfold the maps their dad kept in the glove compartment and tell Sam to read the license plate on the car sitting next to them during traffic and then find that place on the map. When Sam would stumble on P-Pen-Pennsylvania but always get Kansas. John told them the next place they were going and Sam and Dean would have a scavenger hunt on the map to find the state and town.)

Sometimes, Dean gets half an hour where Sam isn’t jumping in his seat or holding his hands over his ears. Dean imagines the Devil fizzling away from the backseat where Sam thinks he’s riding. Sam sings along with Dean to Pink Floyd, quietly, as if being too loud is too much energy on his sleep deprived body. Dean sometimes stops singing with Sam and tries to commit Sam’s voice to memory. He’s scared he’ll forget.

When they get to New Orleans, Dean checks them into a motel. Sam tells him to go to sleep, that he’ll be fine. Sam goes to take a shower and Dean prays to their absent angel and their absent god that Sam won’t leave while he’s sleeping.

When Dean wakes up, Sam is missing a fingernail and his hair is cut short—shorter than Dean’s ever seen it. It’s choppy, like Sam took the scissors and grabbed chucks of it to slice off without looking the mirror.

“Here, little brother,” Dean says, and goes to get the scissors. He gives Sam a proper haircut, like he always has.

(Dean thinks about the first time he gave Sam a haircut, when Sam was two and his hair was down to his shoulders and Dean stole scissors from his teacher’s desk and chopped his baby brother’s baby hair. Dean tries not to think about how the haircut he’s giving Sam might be the last haircut he’ll ever give Sam.)

They leave the Impala at the motel and take a streetcar to the French Quarter. The other passengers are trying to be sneaky about their staring at Sam’s Lucifer-induced fits, but Dean sees them, and he knows Sam sees them too. Dean imagines Death taking them all, imagines reapers coming to shuttle them across. He hopes for their deaths, because their staring is bothering Sam. He can almost hear Lucifer chanting, “freak, freak, freak,” into Sam’s ear.

They get to Café du Monde in the morning and there’s a line that wraps around the building. The hot Southern sun has Sam and Dean sweating by the time they get into the restaurant. They sit outside and use all the napkins to wipe the sweat off their foreheads.

Sam flinches towards Dean and away from Lucifer once before saying, “I’ve actually been here before. Jess and I went for spring break our junior year.” He flinches again. “Sorry for lying, but I wanted to come back.”

Dean tells him not to apologize, but Sam is already gone, staring wide-eyed at the empty seat at their table. The waitress comes by and Dean order them coffee and beignets. She stares at Sam—covering his ears and screwing his eyes shut—for one second too long and Dean decides her tip is gone.

“Sammy? It’s just me, ok?” Dean says. He doesn’t wait for Sam to respond before he runs his hand through Sam’s short hair, like he did when Sam was little and afraid of a ghost in the closet.

Sam calms down, and leans his head into Dean’s touch. Dean keeps playing with Sam’s hair until their coffee and beignets get there. Sam drinks his entire coffee in one gulp, so Dean slides his across the table to Sam, who drinks that one too.

“Tell me about Jess, Sammy,” Dean says. “You never really—I don’t really know anything about her. This was her favourite place?”

Sam takes a second to collect himself. “Yeah, she went here all the time when she was little. Jess was, she was studying English. She minored in Education because her dad thought it would be more lucrative, but she wanted to minor in Dance.” Sam shuts his eyes tight for a second before continuing, “Brady, no, no wait, the demon inside Brady introduced us sophomore year. He knew her roommate. On our first date we went to this Chinese food place off campus because Brady told me it was her favourite.” Sam looks at the empty chair again and Dean starts playing with Sam’s hair.

“What was she like?”

Sam lets himself be distracted by Lucifer for a second before he says, “She was funny; she made me laugh. She had the same birthday as you, actually. I think—I think she knew it was someone else’s birthday because she always let me stay home and wallow instead of making me go out. Her favourite drink was whiskey. She was Catholic; she would drag me to church sometimes. She had three little brothers, and her family lives north of San Francisco. Her oldest little brother was a big football player at his high school so we would always go to his games. Her dad used to take me golfing on Sundays. I was going to ask him if I could propose to her the next time we went out, but…” Sam trails off.

“She sounds great, Sammy, really she does,” Dean says to fill the quietness. They eat their beignets in silence (Sam throws his down only twice; Dean convinces him it’s ok to eat) before going back to the motel room.

* * *

It goes like this:

It’s a full day’s drive to Mount Rushmore, so they stop in Laurence to stay overnight. Sam goes to visit their mom’s grave, but Dean stays in the car. He calls every hunter he knows to see if they know any hoodoo doctors, any faith healers, any anything to save his brother. They all say no and end the conversation quickly. Dean wonders if they can hear the raw desperation in his voice, the anger.

When they get to Mount Rushmore, Dean checks them into a hotel; he gets them a suite. They have a kitchen in their room and Dean makes them hamburgers.

Sam is trying. Sam is trying, so he says, “I didn’t know you could cook,” and he laughs. Dean can play along, so he smiles and tells him to shut up and eat his sandwich.

(Dean can cook. He learned from Lisa, when his baby brothers were being tortured by Michael and Lucifer. When he was drinking too much. When he was being eaten alive by dreams of Sam’s skin being flayed off. When Ben looked at him like he didn’t know whether to be afraid or fascinated. When he wanted to go back to the cemetery and claw at the spot in the earth were Sam threw himself into Hell. Lisa taught him to cook so that he would stop drinking. She taught him to distract him, to stop him from thinking about Lucifer using Sam as a plaything. Dean got good at being distracted.)

Dean skips sleep that night, and he and Sam stay awake watching TV. Sam covers his ears and eyes half the night, and nothing Dean does can stop him.

They go to see Mount Rushmore the next day. Sam looks even more tired than he has been, and they stop seven times so Sam can sit down. Dean sees people staring. He wonders what they think when they see Sam, what diagnosis they’re giving him.

They look at dead presidents for five minutes before getting bored and going back to the hotel room. Dean takes a nap while Sam lays down to rest.

When Dean wakes up, he can hear Sam talking to Lucifer. Dean pretends to still be sleeping so he can listen.

Sam is begging. “Please, please,” he’s saying. “Please just, let me sleep. Let me sleep.” Dean hears Sam’s breathe in sharply. Dean gets up and puts his arm around Sam’s shoulders; Sam puts his head on Dean’s shoulder and screws his eyes shut. Sam’s fingernails are gone. Dean tries not to think about what that means.

* * *

It goes like this:

They stay in South Dakota for anouther night before leaving for Arizona. It’s a 17 hour drive, and Sam won’t stop touching the places where his fingernails once were. He keeps looking into the backseat before muttering to himself, “It’s not real, it’s not real.” Dean wonders if Sam knows that he can hear him, or if he’s too caught up in his own delusion to remember that Dean is even in the car with him.

During the drive, Dean thinks about sleep, and he thinks about time, and he thinks about reapers.

(Dean thinks about the days and nights where he went without sleep. Dad and Dean would leave Sammy in a motel room and make him promise to go to school and not raise any alarms before they would bolt three towns over to where the monster was lurking. They would stay awake for days on end, gathering information and stalking the monster and hunting hunting hunting always hunting. Dean would get blinding headaches and stumble towards the bed in the motel room to nap while John talked about needing Dean’s help, needing Dean awake. Deans wonders if Sam has headaches.)

(Dean thinks about the time he’s had with Sam. It feels like too much and too little, all at the same time. He thinks about hours, days, weeks, years spent cramped into the Impala. When they were young, he and Sam would be squished together in the backseat, no room to spread out, no room to sleep. When Dean turned twelve, he got shotgun and Sam laid across the backseat with a three dollar gas station blanket draped across him. Dean thinks about spending every waking moment with Sam when they were kids. They’ve spend so time together, but it will never be enough. Dean thinks he could have a thousand years to look at Sam; the man he raised, the baby brother he loves; and it would never be enough. Dean wants to memorize every detail of Sam’s face, his hair, his ears, his hands. Dean thinks about time, and he knows that it’s running out.)

(Dean thinks about Tessa. He remembers her voice, low and soothing. He hopes Tessa is Sam’s reaper; hopes that soothing voice will be the last Sam hears before he makes the trip upstairs. Dean prays for Tessa. He hates Death for taking his time with Sam. Dean wishes for a quick, easy death for Sam, not this climb into insanity. Dean prays for Tessa, and prays that Sam will go with her.)

When they get to Arizona, Dean is sweating before he gets out of the car. Sam is too, but he sighs happily into the heat. The Devil burns cold, so Sam likes the sun.

The view is beautiful. Sam is too weak to make any treks down the canyon, but they stand by the side and take it in. Sam has his eyes closed and Dean wonders if he’s praying. He hopes so. Sam opens his eyes and takes a step back from the side before sitting down in the dirt to hold his hands over his ears. Dean sits next to him and puts his hands over Sam’s until Sam is ready to take them off.  

The sun is setting when Sam says, “I went here with Ruby once, while you were in Hell.”

“Sam, let’s not talk about—”

“I really loved her,” Sam continues. “I did. I know how that sounds, but it’s true.”

Dean doesn’t want to fight—not like this, when Sam is dying and no amount of arguing is going to change anything—but he still finds himself saying, “Sam, she was an evil bitch who deserved what she got.”

Sam is quiet. “I had nightmares about you killing her for weeks. She wasn’t all bad. We used to go to the movies a lot, and she would always order extra French fries, and she—she loved me too. I know you think she couldn’t, but she did.”

“Okay, Sammy, she loved you too. You were in love.”

Sam doesn’t say anything else, and they keep looking into the canyon until sunset. The sun goes down, and it gets cold, and Sam has to go inside.

* * *

It ends like this:

Sam dies in Las Vegas. They decided to have their last Vegas week, but Sam’s kidneys fail six hours after arriving. He dies two hours after that.

Dean has him cremated, and buried next to Jessica. Dean tracks her family down and invites them to the funeral. Jessica’s mother cries, and her little brother; the football star; cries, and Dean feels empty. They offer him a place to stay, but he declines. There’s a hunt in San Antonio.

* * *

It went like this:

They were staying at Bobby’s house when they scratched their initials into the Impala. Dad was inside with Bobby, talking ghosts or ghouls, Dean can’t remember. Dad told him to take Sammy outside so that he wouldn’t hear. They were playing the salvage yard when Dean got the idea to carve their initials into the trunk. Dad taught him how to break into the trunk already so he popped it open and grabbed the first sharp edge he could find. He split it in half and gave the other part to Sam.

“Will Dad be mad?”

Yes. “No, Sammy, he won’t even notice.” He noticed.

“I’m gonna scratch in D.W. because those are my initials, Dean Winchester. You’re gonna scratch in S.W. for Sammy Winchester.” Dean tells him.

“Why are we doing this again?”

“Because the Impala is our house and Mom used to say that you should always write your name on something that’s yours so that other people don’t accidentally think it’s theirs.” Sam had been a crazy kick about Mom, and Dean was desperate to give him something that wouldn’t lead to more questions.

Sammy nodded and they took to it. Dean finished first, so he put his hand over Sammy’s and helped him press a little bit harder so it would actually get scratched in there. They stepped back and admired their work for a second before going back to playing tag amongst the broken cars.


End file.
